First Arbitration Forum Titled: "Arbitrator between Palestinian Arbitration Law and Comparative Law"

ACT Conflict Resolution through this Arbitration Forum aims to highlight legal problems related to the subject of arbitration as an alternative mean of resolving disputes for the purposes of finding appropriate solutions and developing and promoting the subject of arbitration among members of society.

The Arbitration Forum hosted on Wednesday 21/12/2022 by Dr. Mohammed Al-Shaheer from Egypt and resident of Bahrain with a PHD in private law. He is an active legal arbitrator. He is also a researcher, lecturer and trainer specializing in arbitration and is bound by the lists of the GCC Commercial Arbitration Center. The forum also hosted Dr. Issam Al-Tamimi of Palestine, an accredited arbitrator within the Palestinian Ministry of Justice and the owner and founder of Tamimi Law, Arbitration, Governance and Intellectual Property Office, In an interactive session prepared by Hiba Touqan of Palestine titled: "Arbitrator between Palestinian Arbitration Law and Comparative Law", with 45 participants from various Arab countries.

Several questions were answered in this dialogue, including: The concept of a likely arbitrator and clarification of his role in Palestinian arbitration law, where the Palestinian legislator, unlike the rest of Arab laws, has singled out that the arbitral tribunal may even in number, which has raised many questions on the subject of an arbitrator whose role has risen in cases where the arbitrators disagree with a particular decision in respect of a particular part of the arbitral case in order to weigh one arbitrator's opinion over the other. A distinction has been drawn between the concept of the presiding arbitrator and that of the likely arbitrator in order to conclude that the presiding arbitrator participates in, supervises and administers the entire arbitral proceedings contrary to the role of the likely arbitrator, whose role is only when the arbitrators disagree on the whole or part of the arbitral tribunal, so that its role is limited to the consideration of that partial.

We have also reached several recommendations with regard to the Palestinian Arbitration Law. We should keep abreast of the provisions of the comparative Arab legislation and amend the provisions of the Palestinian Arbitration Law No. 3 of 2000 in terms of how the arbitral tribunal is constituted and the need for the number to be uneven (tripartite arbitral tribunal) rather than the number being even (two arbitrators within the arbitral tribunal) in order to avoid the issue of the likely arbitrator and the legal problems raised.

Many participants expressed their views on the subject of the likely arbitrator through Arab legislation in force, including in Egyptian, Bahraini and Saudi legislation, which enriched this dialogue with many comparative legislative opinions.

We note that ACT will organize a monthly dialogue session through the Arbitration Forum to highlight many issues and issues related to arbitration as an alternative means of resolving disputes.